Some New Year’s resolutions notoriously fall to the wayside by mid-January or early February, but there are some important and reasonable changes you can stick to from now to 2015 and beyond. The World Health Organization (WHO) states true health is a state of complete physical, social and mental well-being, rather than the mere absence of disease. According to a list compiled by USA.gov, many New Year’s Resolutions reflect this truth. The most popular New Year’s Resolutions are eating healthier, getting fit and reducing stress. While most people lose the drive for these resolutions mid-year (at the latest), there are ways you can go strong all year long.

1. Get Fit

Getting fit helps your well-being in numerous ways. Regular exercise and physical activity reduces stress levels, increases energy, promotes creativity, helps you remain alert and stimulates the release serotonin and endorphins (making you feel happier).

Photo by bepositivelyfit via Flickr

If you were completely inactive in 2013, start slow by taking a 15-minute walk three days a week. Once you are comfortable with this amount of activity, increase your walk to 30-minutes three days a week. According to Mayo Clinic, you should eventually begin to exercise 30-minutes every day. You can gradually begin incorporating other physician-approved activities into your lifestyle and visit sites like Laser Spine Institute to watch videos that demonstrate how to exercise safely and offer first-hand patient experiences.

2. Reduce Stress

To reduce stress, you need to stop worrying. Constant worrying can keep you up at night and make you tense throughout the day. If you believe that your worrying protects you in some way, breaking this habit may be difficult. Once you recognize that worrying is a problem, not a solution, you can regain control of your mind.

Telling yourself to stop worrying is not the answer. You can suppress these thoughts, but you cannot eliminate them for good. To test this theory, close your eyes and picture a yellow zebra. After seeing this zebra in your mind, stop thinking about it. Chances are the yellow zebra continues to reappear. This is why ‘thought stopping’ does not work.

Photo by RelaxingMusic via Flickr

Choose a place and set time where you can worry. Make sure the time you choose will not affect your sleep schedule. During this worry period, you can worry about anything. Throughout your day when a worry enters your head, make a note of it and save it for your worry period. Postponing worry works because it effectively breaks the habit of worrying in the present moment. You save it for later and as you develop the ability to postpone your worries, you will begin realizing you have more control than you previously thought.

3. Eat Healthier/Lose Weight

Excess weight adds more stress to your back and joints, losing weight can help relieve some of the pain you are experiencing.

Photo by fiverlocker via Flickr

One of the best ways to get on the right track is to eat a healthy breakfast. Breakfast truly is the most important meal of the day. Your metabolism does not begin to work until you eat breakfast. Just like exercise, eating breakfast increases your energy levels and ability to concentrate. However, to benefit from eating breakfast, you need to choose healthy foods. Avoid the jelly-filled doughnut and instead opt for homemade trail mix, hard-boiled eggs or chopped fruit. Starting your day off the right way will help you keep your New Year’s recharged every day. And don’t forget, if you fall off, you can always jump right back on track. Tomorrow is a new, fresh start.

Healthier Food Choices

• Low-Fat Dairy
• Vegetables
• Fruit
• Whole Grains
• Oatmeal
• Yogurt Smoothies
• Ground Turkey Omelet
• Scrambled Eggs with Tomatoes

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